August 13, 2013 – Silicon Labs (NASDAQ: SLAB, Country Manager In-gyu Kim), a global leader in high-performance analog-intensive mixed-signal ICs, announced today the launch of a new family of Silicon TV tuners. The new Silicon TV tuner family supports all terrestrial and cable TV standards worldwide while providing industry-leading performance, high integration, and the lowest system costs. The new Si21x7 tuner family is the fifth generation of products featuring an enhanced, patented architecture. Building on a production history of over 200 million Silicon tuner components shipped to TVs, it delivers world-class, field-proven performance to TV and set-top box (STB) manufacturers. The Si21x7 family includes five products optimized for hybrid analog/digital iDTV, analog-only TV, portable TV, DVD and Blu-ray recorders, and terrestrial and cable STBs.

The Si21x7 TV tuner family delivers performance improvements across several key areas, providing the best-in-class sensitivity and selectivity, reduced bill of materials (BOM) costs, and low power consumption that TV and STB manufacturers have expected from Silicon Labs. The Si21x7 tuner features improved noise figures (NF) across all bands, return loss for a given NF, channel selectivity in the presence of terrestrial blockers, at full load, and in tilted cable spectrums, as well as linearity over a wide RF input power range. These enhanced performance improvements in key areas have resulted in improved reception performance for terrestrial or cable broadcasts under various real-world field conditions. These features strengthen Silicon Labs' market leadership with TV tuner performance that is differentiated from competitor solutions.

The highly integrated Si21x7 tuner products are designed to enable the mass production of all silicon TV tuner solutions at the lowest possible BOM cost. Unlike competitor silicon TV tuners, the Si21x7 tuner products do not require an external balanced-to-unbalanced transformer at the RF stage, thereby significantly reducing system cost and complexity without compromising performance. Furthermore, the Si21x7 TV tuner integrates all tracking filter inductors and, thanks to its high power ripple immunity, eliminates the need for inductive power filtering, which is typically a critical factor in onboard design. The built-in power-on reset monitor and optional single 3.3V power supply operation further reduce system costs. Additionally, the Si21x7 tuner provides enhanced electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection and performance critical to TV module design, making it suitable for top-priority TV modules requiring higher ESD immunity by eliminating the need for expensive ESD diodes and lowering BOM costs.

The ultra-low power Si21x7 TV tuner operates at less than 500 mW, helping manufacturers minimize power consumption in TV or STB products and enabling compliance with Energy Star and other green energy standards. Low TV power consumption also allows for the simplification of multi-tuner designs by alleviating power supply and thermal requirements.

As the penetration of Wi-Fi and LTE communication in homes increases, TV designers are increasingly considering the performance of TV tuners that block RF signals that can interfere with TV reception. The Si21x7 TV tuner architecture addresses this issue by blocking Wi-Fi and LTE signals without requiring external filtering components. In addition, this resistance to Wi-Fi/LTE signals makes the Si21x7 tuner an ideal solution for smart connected TVs with built-in Wi-Fi and LTE.

The low noise floor at the IF output of Silicon Labs' Si2157 and Si2127 TV tuners enables industry-leading signal-to-noise (SNR) at the audio/video SoC analog demodulator output. Consequently, it provides sharper, more vivid, and less hazy images when receiving analog broadcasts. Improved linearity over a wider RF input power range enhances carrier-to-composite second-order (CSO) and composite triple-beat (CTB) performance. These factors are critical specifications for cable mode reception.

Along with other Silicon Labs TV tuners, the Si21x7 family supports all global TV broadcasting standards, including NTSC and PAL/SECAM for analog TV and DVB-T2/C2/T/C, ISDB-T/C, ATSC/QAM, and DTMB for digital TV. To ensure ultimate flexibility when matching TV tuners to various system architectures, all products within the Si21x7 family are pinout compatible and use the same single software API. This compatibility allows a single module or PCB design to meet multiple TV and STB applications for both digital and analog TV. Additionally, the Si21x7 TV tuner family is pin-to-pin compatible and API-compatible with the Si21x8 family. Therefore, existing customers can make a seamless transition through a minor software update without changing their hardware.

James Stansberry, Vice President and General Manager of Broadcast Products at Silicon Labs, stated, “Since first launching our TV tuner in 2009, we achieved the success story of 100 million units in 2012, and one year later, we have shipped over 200 million tuners. This performance demonstrates phenomenal market momentum that competitors cannot match.” He added, “By solidifying our position as the number one player in the video tuner market, we are supplying Silicon TV tuners in large quantities to nine out of the top ten TV manufacturers worldwide.”

As a leader in the semiconductor TV tuner market possessing tuners actually adopted by all major TV manufacturers, Silicon Labs maintains superior technology and market leadership over competitors by combining top performance with the lowest system costs. Silicon Labs continues to invest in its TV tuner portfolio to provide the benefits of state-of-the-art TV tuners to existing and new customers.

Price and supply
Samples and production quantities of the Si2177/57/47/37/27 TV tuners are currently available in a compact 4 mm x 4 mm 28-pin QFN package. The Si21x7 hybrid TV tuner family is priced at $0.85 per 10,000-unit quantity. The Si2177-A-EVB, Si2157-A-EVB, Si2147-A-EVB, and Si2137-A-EVB evaluation kits are priced at $395 each and provide a comprehensive platform for evaluating Silicon Labs' TV tuners for TV and STB applications. Detailed information about Silicon Labs' Si21x7 TV tuner, as well as information on purchasing samples and development tools, can be found at www.silabs.com/pr/tv-tuner .